DONALD Browne told the federal court that since Dec. 17, 2020, he was no longer the chief executive officer of Imperial Pacific International LLC.
In response and opposition to the U.S. Department of Labor request to hold IPI and its primary officials in contempt for violating a previous consent judgment and for not paying their employees for over two months, Browne said he resigned on Dec. 3, 2020.
“My resignation was to be effective two weeks later on Dec. 17. However, I extended my term to Dec. 22 so that I could represent IPI at one last Commonwealth Casino Commission public hearing,” Browne said.
Following the CCC public hearing on Dec. 22 “my term as CEO ended,” he added.
Browne said he returned to his former position of assisting the security and surveillance team on Dec. 23.
“As of that date I no longer had authority over the finances and administration of IPI, I was no longer part of the financial operations or management teams upon my resignation from the CEO position becoming effective,” he said in a 28-page opposition he filed without a legal counsel.
Browne said on the day he tendered his resignation, former IPI attorney Michael Dotts forwarded him a message from USDOL regarding the first amended consent judgment executed on June 12, 2020.
Browne denies any knowledge of a consent judgment or an amended consent judgment that existed prior to Dec. 4, 2020.
“Subsequent to my learning about the amended consent judgment against IPI and IPI Holdings Limited on Dec. 4, I learned that in 2019, IPIHL had hired a law firm in the mainland called Freeh Sporkin & Sullivan, LLC for this matter. IPI and IPIHL were represented by Eugene Sullivan from that law firm. I had never spoken with Eugene Sullivan nor had any involvement with this case until Dec. 4,” Browne said.
He added that he has discussed the consent judgment with a USDOL attorney.
“I explained how several stop work orders were initiated by myself on both the construction site and our casino operations support team. I admitted to [USDOL senior trial attorney Charles Song] that even with the stop work orders, employees continued to come to work. Management tolerated the employees working even though the company could not timely pay them because the expectation was that IPI would pay them soon,” Browne said.
“There was no intent not to pay them,” he added.
He said he personally posted a stop work order on Dec. 7, 2020.
Just hours after posting the memo, he said he was awakened from his sleep by a continuous knocking on the back door of his home.
“An interpreter asked me to please come and meet to discuss the stop work order. At the meeting was the chairlady of the board of directors of IPI’s parent company, Cui Li Jie. She was with five other individuals. I was asked by them to please withdraw the stop work order…. The chairlady then promised me that all employees would be paid 100% of wages owed by December 10 and that everything would be okay. Moments later an interpreter said it was the 14th and not the 10th. I understood that everyone desired that I withdraw the stop work order and I was assured all wages would be paid by Dec. 14, I therefore relented and withdrew the stop work order.”
Browne said part of his reasoning for withdrawing the stop work order was that the foreign workers of IPI could not be repatriated due to a lack of funds to pay for their plane tickets, and “I was told that they would rather work than sit in the company-provided housing doing nothing.”
Browne told the court that the payroll was not paid on Dec. 14, but “more promises were made by the chairlady that payroll would be paid soon. I am informed and believe that on Dec. 24 IPI’s bank received a wire transfer sufficient to cover all outstanding payroll. IPI then began issuing payroll checks. I understand and believe that the wire was ultimately rejected by the bank on Dec. 31, and sent back to its source. Many of the checks to the employees that had been issued then bounced. However, I am informed and believe that the money was back on Saipan on Jan. 5, 2020.”
Browne said it was never his intention to violate the consent judgment whose existence he did not know.
“The consent judgment was a matter handled long before I became CEO and involved off-island attorneys who I do not know,” Browne said.
“I only allowed employees to work when IPI was not paying them because I believed that they would be paid all of their back wages by Dec. 14, and then that they would be paid by Christmas. I am still hopeful that all the wages owed to the employees including to myself will be paid shortly,” Browne added.
His motion included 20 letters from IPI employees supporting him.
District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona will hear USDOL’s petition on Jan. 21, 2021 at 8:30 a.m.
In its eight-page petition for contempt and for an order for IPI to show cause, the USDOL stated that IPI created a “humanitarian crisis” in the CNMI.
The USDOL accused IPI executives of unlawfully requiring stranded employees to work without pay during a global pandemic, and failing to meet the workers’ basic necessities or provide for their return to their home countries.
The petition also noted that the USDOL on Nov. 22, 2020 debarred IPI from the H-2B program for a period of five years for failure to pay back wages.
The USDOL wants the court to enforce the April 11, 2019 consent judgment and to issue an order finding IPI, IPI chairperson and executive director Cui Li Jie, and IPI CNMI chief executive officer Donald Browne in civil contempt for violating the judgment.
